Intel based cards

Graphical Input

There is more than one way to do this but we'll use HAL.
First enter this as root to get hal.

pacman -Sy hal

Once it is installed you can start it by typing this as root.

/etc/rc.d/hal start

You will want to add "hal" to your daemons list in /etc/rc.conf.

Touchpad

Now that HAL is installed follow the instructions for Synaptic touchpad via HAL policy (this is based on the Vostro 1500 and may not apply but if it seems like everything is frozen after starting X you should probably try this)

Graphics

First of all it is necessary to install the Xorg server. The easiest way to do this is by entering the following command as root:

pacman -Sy xorg

Press Y to install all the packages and wait for the download to finish.

Nvidia GeForce 8400M GS

The proprietry Nvidia drivers are setup very easily for the GeForce 8400M GS. Having installed Xorg (see above) you type in this command into the console as root:

pacman -S nvidia

After it has finished downloading you need to configure the Nvidia drivers. You will need to be logged in as root.
Enter the following command:

nvidia-config

Now, open up /etc/X11/XF86Config in a text editor and comment out the line; Load "type1". For this example we'll use nano: